286 A MISSION TO VITI. 
oil, the native process being of a primitive description. 
To remedy this evil, Captain Wilson and M. Joubert, of 
Sydney, have set up proper machinery on their estate at 
Somosomo, after one of the partners had familiarized 
himself with the latest improvement in that branch of 
industry in Ceylon; and it is their intention to take ad- 
vantage of the luxuriant manner in which Coboi, or 
lemon-grass (Andropogon Schenanthus, Linn.), grows in 
Fiji, by cultivating it for the purpose of making citro- 
nella oil. Cocoa-nut oil congealing at a temperature of 
about 72° Fahr., and the thermometer during the cool 
months often falling below that degree, a proper amount 
of warmth will be kept up whilst the operation of press- 
ing the pulverized kernels is going on, and thus another 
step be taken towards the making of the largest quan- 
tity of oil from the least number of nuts. Wilkes, upon 
the authority of one of the scientific men attached to 
his expedition, states that there were only two varieties 
of cocoa-nut, a green and a brown. Closer attention to 
the subject would have shown this to be a mistake; not 
only the colour, but also the average size and shape of 
the fruits, the height of the trees, and the insertion of 
the leaflets, or rather segments, offer marks of distinc- 
tion between the numerous varieties with which the is- 
lands are studded. The most striking kind is the one 
having fruits not much larger than a turkey’s egg, and 
bearing more than a hundred of them in each bunch. 
Several trees were noticed at Kadavu, about Yarabale, 
a narrow isthmus, where canoes are dragged across from 
sea to sea. The curious phenomenon of a cocoa-nut 
palm becoming, as it were, branched by the division of 
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